by Roy Adkins
At around three in the morning, Captain Curtis took another detachment of the Marine Brigade to the New Mole, from where they set off in gunboats to fire at the small boats that were approaching, so as to prevent any of the floating batteries being towed away and to stop them rescuing the crews. ‘I thought this a fit opportunity to employ my gun-boats,’ he explained,
and I advanced with the whole, (twelve in number, each carrying a twenty-four or eighteen pounder [gun]), and drew them up so as to flank the line of the enemy’s battering ships, while they were annoyed extremely by an excessive heavy and well-directed fire from the garrison. The fire from the gun-boats was kept up with great vigour and effect. The boats of the enemy durst not approach; they abandoned their ships [the floating batteries], and the men left in them, to our mercy, or to the flames.15
When Curtis captured two of the rescue boats, he learned that many of their comrades were still on board, so he decided to save as many as he could, even though nearly all the floating batteries were on fire: ‘The scene at this time before me was dreadful to a high degree, numbers of men crying from amidst the flames, some upon pieces of wood in the water, others appearing in the ships where the fire had as yet made but little progress, all expressing by speech and gesture the deepest distress, and all imploring assistance.’16
Watching from afar, Houdan-Deslandes appreciated their humane rescue efforts, but was shocked when the flames reached one of the gunpowder magazines, and it ‘was blown sky high at 5 o’clock with a terrible explosion’.17 Others then blew up, one after another, but not the Pastora and Talla Piedra, whose gunpowder had been waterlogged or hurled overboard. These unpredictable explosions made the work of rescuing the crews particularly hazardous, and the rescue efforts were not helped by the Spanish guns firing at them from the isthmus. Curtis sent his boats and men to virtually every burning vessel, and Lindsay said that he ‘even ransacked the holds of several, and removed the wounded. Some infatuated wretches were employed in drinking spirits, and in search of plunder, losing thereby the opportunity of being saved.’18
One explosion engulfed Curtis’s own gunboat in burning debris, which horrified Eliott:
For some time I felt the utmost anguish, seeing his pinnace [small boat] close to one of the largest ships at the instant she blew up, and spread her wreck to a vast extent all round. The black cloud of smoke being dispersed, I was again revived by the sight of the pinnace, little apprehending that the Brigadier was in the utmost danger of sinking, some pieces of timber having fallen into and pierced the boat (killing the coxswain, and wounding others of the men), scarce any hope left of reaching the shore. Providentially he was saved by stopping the hole with the seamen’s jackets, until boats arrived to their relief.19
At the same time, another of Gibraltar’s gunboats was sunk, but its crew was saved, and there were other lucky escapes while the rescue effort continued. Ancell related one story:
A young boy on board one of the floating batteries (which was almost in an entire blaze), observing our boats making for the shore, got upon the head, wept and cried, and in the Spanish tongue called for help. His entreaties prevailed, and one of our boats, notwithstanding the immense danger which threatened, rowed towards him, which he perceiving, jumped into the sea, and at that very instant the ship exploded, with the greatest part of the hands on board. The boat soon after took the boy up.20
With the danger of further explosions, the gunboats rowed back to the New Mole, rescuing a few more people on the way. The remaining floating batteries continued to burn, and Spilsbury said that ‘numbers of Spaniards were blown up in the vessels, some that would not leave them, and others that were so wounded they could not be got out’.21
The garrison hoped to save two of the vessels near the Old Mole as trophies, but unexpectedly one of them exploded with great violence, vividly described by Lindsay:
After it had burnt almost an hour, we felt everything near us tremble; there was a thunder from it which was dreadful; but the cloud which it formed was beyond all description, rolling its prodigious volumes one over another, mixed with fire, with earth, with smoke, and heavy bodies innumerable, on which the fancy formed various conjectures while they rose and fell; till the whole arriving at its height in a gradual progress of near ten minutes, the top rolled downwards, forming the capital of a column of prodigious architecture, which the first-rate painter must have been eager, though perhaps unequal to have imitated.22
This massive explosion broke glass window panes and blew open doors of buildings. It also threw up a mushroom cloud that dominated the scene for some time, before dispersing, which Picton also described:
The explosion was tremendous, and the innumerable particles of the wreck that were thrown up perceptibly into the air fell down in a kind of circular shower, as it were, with that degree of violence as caused such prodigious agitation in the water for some short continuance, as if produced by the most extreme subterranean heat, but the enormous column of smoke of variegated colours which ascended at the same time, expanding itself gradually to an immense height, was really most astonishing.23
Once the smoke cleared, Picton said, there was virtually no vestige of the floating battery. Because of the danger of further loss of life, it was decided to set fire to the very last one. In all, seven of the floating batteries exploded and three burned down to the waterline, after being bombarded by about five thousand red-hot shot. Picton was disappointed that the garrison did not save any of the floating batteries, thinking they would have been a great asset moored between the South Bastion and New Mole. ‘I suppose there were sufficient reasons for not making any such attempt,’ he wrote, ‘although I am perfectly unacquainted with them.’24
Curtis and his men managed to drag from the burning wrecks ten officers, three priests and 354 soldiers and sailors, who were all landed at the New Mole as prisoners-of-war.25 During their rescue efforts, his seamen also liberated what they could grab from the floating batteries, and at 8 o’clock in the morning they brought their spoils on shore. It was now the turn of the spectators on Gibraltar to revel in the scene, as Ancell observed:
one [seaman] has just landed with the royal standard of Spain which was intended by the foe to be hoisted on these battlements. The hills and heights were covered with spectators when the tars began their procession, incessant shouts and repeated acclamations continued from the Mole to the South Parade, where the governor and principal officers were ... to whom they carried the colours, which sensibly pleased our gallant Chief, who joined the crowd in three cheers, and presented the tars with some gold as a reward.26
Later on, Ancell said, ‘Our Governor, to please the soldiery and inhabitants, has directed the Spanish standard to be reversed and tied to a gun on the South Parade. It must be a galling vexation to our foes to behold their royal flag so ignobly displayed, and made the sport of the multitude.’27
That morning, at around 9 o’clock, the prisoners-of-war were escorted to Windmill Hill, where they were to be guarded in a camp by the Corsican Volunteers. Drinkwater was struck by their advanced age:
it was observed, with no small surprise, by many who were present when the prisoners were landed, that the majority of them seemed to be past that age when the vital powers are supposed to be in their greatest vigour ... The Spaniards, from their dark complexion and scanty diet, have naturally, even when young, an aged look: and yet our observations seemed confirmed by other indubitable facts. Several bodies were thrown ashore, all of which seemed advanced in years; and one in particular appeared, from his grey beard and lean visage, past sixty.28
Many other prisoners were taken to the naval hospital with dreadful injuries and burns. ‘Some of them were most horrid spectacles,’ Ancell remarked,
one in particular I must mention, who was carried by four men on a handbarrow. He had received a wound on his face, so that his nose and eyes were separated from his head, hanging by a piece of skin,
and the motion of the men that carried him occasioned its flapping backwards and forwards, much resembling a mask. Though he must have felt the most sensible agony, yet he looked round him with great complacency, as he passed the numerous crowds of people.29
It was estimated that one-third or more of the French and Spaniards on board the floating batteries must have perished – between 1600 and 2000 men. Houdan-Deslandes reckoned the death toll numbered 1400 to 1500 men, as well as many officers. Eliott interrogated the prisoners and could only establish that ‘a great number of officers and men serving on board were either killed, wounded or burnt in the ships’.30 A Spanish officer wrote shortly afterwards to a friend:
There will be horror and astonishment throughout the whole world at the news of the burning and destruction of the much-vaunted floating batteries; dismay at the thought of the sacrifice of close to 1480 valiant soldiers, dead, wounded or taken prisoner in this fatal enterprise; and surprise that in the short space of two hours, these contrivances were set on fire, even though they were proved by their inventor as incombustible and unsinkable and adopted by the two ministers in Madrid and at Versailles.31
Within the garrison only seventeen men died and eighty-six were wounded, and many of those were due to the fiercest ever bombardment from the batteries along the Spanish Lines, in which over eleven thousand shot and shells were fired. Walter Gordon gave a succinct assessment: ‘The officers and seamen deserve immortal praise; even I whose name will soon sink in oblivion ... exerted my utmost efforts.’32
The joy of those men saved ‘was next to being frantic’, and the heroism of Curtis and his men became legendary. Houdan-Deslandes, who had watched everything from the camp, was full of praise: ‘This feeling of humanity, the generous devotedness of Curtis, the rescue, the consideration that the Spanish and French prisoners received at Gibraltar, are noble monuments of the greatness of the soul of our enemy, and will be much more of a credit to Eliott in the eyes of posterity.’33 Flags of truce went between Eliott and the Duc de Crillon, and some of the uninjured prisoners-of-war were returned to Spain within a few days. While being escorted to the transport boats by a guard of Corsican soldiers, Boyd’s journal related that some prisoners ‘were greatly astonished on seeing one of our large forges at the new mole, with a frame of 50 red hot balls on the fire; the Corsican guard very funningly [wittily] told them these were English roasted potatoes, which were preparing for all uncivil strangers that came this way for a refreshment, at the sight of which the priests with the Dons crossed themselves, and with uplifted eyes of wonder, craved a bless from heaven for themselves and their country.’34
The whole bay was covered in wreckage, and debris was brought in on successive tides, aided by the westerly winds. All manner of detritus washed up along Gibraltar’s shore, as Gordon described: ‘The wreck under our walls, formed a scene truly horrible. Dead bodies were floating upon the water, heads, legs, arms, wood, wool, cork, oakum, casks, and boxes, were washed ashore by the sea, and lay in heaps together.’35 Gibraltar was still being blockaded, and so, in spite of the horrific mix, anything of use was eagerly salvaged, and Drinkwater recounted that the wind blew on shore
many trifling curiosities, and some things of value, which had floated on the surface of the Bay, after the battering-ships had blown up. Large wax candles, such as are usually burnt by the Romish priests before their altars, salt provisions, and a great number of ammunition-boxes, containing ten rounds of powder in linen cartridges, were collected by the Garrison ... Considerable pieces of mahogany, and some cedar, were saved from the wrecks ... and these were afterwards converted into various useful articles, serving as memorials of our victory. The Governor had a handsome set of tables made for the Convent.36
Friday 13 September had proved to be unlucky for the French and Spaniards, but Lindsay heard that some blamed their misfortune on one of the priests: ‘They had a priest on board of every ship; one of whom, according to the French reports, was so frightened a little before coming on, that he let the Bon Dieu fall into the water, and that many attributed their failure to that piece of unintended sacrilege.’37 For the garrison it was a propitious day, a victory to add to that of Quebec twenty-three years earlier. In Boyd’s headquarters they were jubilant: ‘Thus ended the unexpected and dismal fate of these 10 battering ships, the boast of Spain. The tragic scene was not in private, neither, but to the publick view and mortifying sight of their combined fleet of 50 sail of C—ds [Cowards] of the Line and above 200 sail of other vessel ... and their great land army of between forty and fifty thousand ... the crowd with shame and remorse turns their eyes from the tragic scene, and with heavy steps returns to their distant dwellings, there to condole and bemoan with their neighbours.’38
While the gunboats and mortar boats had failed to support the floating batteries, Houdan-Deslandes also blamed the guns on land for not doing their job, because they were supposed to attack Gibraltar at the same time:
The floating batteries were exposed all alone to the fire from the fortress and were not supported by anything. The Lines, it is true, fired ... in a fairly courageous and praiseworthy way, from 8 in the morning to 5 in the evening. But then they went silent ... I haven’t sought to find out why the land batteries lacked ammunition on this most important occasion of the siege; why they didn’t send any shot or shells throughout this disastrous night; why 60 armed vessels let the floating batteries burn without helping them.39
Curtis’s rescue efforts had been fired on late in the night from the land batteries, but for the most part insufficient ammunition had been prepared for the Spanish Lines and the batteries of the advance siegeworks. Houdan-Deslandes also failed to comprehend why the floating batteries were not towed away, why the undamaged ones were ordered to be burnt, why more effort was not put into saving the men and why, at the outset, they were moored too close to each other. ‘Why, in short,’ he lamented, ‘was this superb project carried out without proper intelligence, preparation and in a manner that sunk its inventor and the respectable and courageous General [Crillon] who commanded the combined army?’40 The French and Spaniards were also bitter about each other, and Lindsay was certain that ‘The antipathy between the two nations is infinite: the Spaniard hates from the bottom of his soul the Frenchman, who in turn only does the other the honour to hold him in supreme contempt.’41
Houdan-Deslandes, a French officer, felt more compassion: ‘I will never forget, and not even the hardest heart could forget, the horrible night when the floating batteries burned. That bloody scene will always remain in my memory; and all my life I will weep for my friends and soldiers who perished in such a horrifying way.’ Nevertheless, he added:
I cannot hide the fact that the attack was badly conducted. I will not accuse the Engineer d’Arçon for all the accumulated misfortunes of that night. I will accuse the discord and the unknown reason that prevented the simultaneous deployment of everything in our means ... and I will say with all the boldness of a truthful and impartial man: ‘The floating batteries were not fireproof; they weren’t supposed to be; but the immense artillery which should, all at the same time, have struck Gibraltar by land and sea, should have prevented the English from burning them within fourteen hours.’42
In Madrid, King Carlos III received the news with disbelief, while in Paris one visitor repeatedly heard the French talk about
that constant and uniform hatred, which subsists between themselves and the Spaniards, notwithstanding their forced and unnatural alliance ... With the assistance of the French ... they entertained the warmest hope that the fortress must yield. Hope did I say:– They were morally certain of it ... The managers of one of the public places had prepared scenes, at a great expence, to exhibit the storming and capture of Gibraltar. The ballad writers too had been indefatigable; and all were ready at two hours warning. The news therefore of the destruction of these famous batteries was like a thunderclap!
A courier arrived in Pari
s with an account of the battle from the Comte d’Artois, who summed up his view of the attack as: ‘All is lost but Honour.’43
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
HURRICANE
The total destruction of the floating batteries caused general rejoicing in Gibraltar, which was matched by despondency among the French and Spaniards, but soon the garrison began to wonder what would happen next. All movements in and behind the Lines were keenly observed, and Drinkwater was not alone in expecting a renewed attack:
The afternoon of the 14th [September 1782], several thousand men marched with colours from the Enemy’s camp to their lines, and many ships in the Combined Fleet loosed their top-sails. These motions, and the circumstance of many of their boats being manned, caused various speculations within the Garrison ... The furnaces for heating shot [were ordered] to be continued lighted, lest the Enemy should be prompted to put all to the stake, and attempt the Garrison by a general attack. It was indeed afterwards rumoured that such a design had been in contemplation, but was over-ruled by the Duke [de Crillon], who was of opinion it would be exposing the fleet and army to immediate destruction.1
The combined fleet fired a grand salute the following day, as if they had just achieved a victory. They may have been beaten, but the siege was not at an end, as Houdan-Deslandes remarked: ‘Crillon did not give up the enterprise [but] ordered the continuation of firing from the lines, and had a new mortar battery set up. The Court of Madrid thought like him. Charles III extended his powers and ordered him to continue the siege.’2
On Gibraltar life was returning to what passed for normal. The main focus of work was on repairs to all the defences, which was constantly interrupted by firing from the isthmus, and the engineers decided to erect many more purpose-built kilns for heating red-hot shot all round the garrison, similar to limekilns, but smaller.3 The gunboat that had sunk in one of the explosions was salvaged, and efforts were also made to raise the Porcupine and Brilliant frigates that had been deliberately scuttled, though this was not so easy and took several days. A week after the disaster of the floating batteries, the Spanish mortar boats returned, along with a few gunboats, though their initial attacks seemed half-hearted, as Boyd’s journal related: ‘At half past one o’clock this morning [20 September] the enemy’s mortar boats attacked us, at a very great distance, so that one shell in 10 did not reach the shore but fell in the sea. One of their shells fell in Southport ditch, wounded 2 men and the fountain or aqueduct pipe that leads through the ditch. One man of the Artillery had his head shot off as he sat on the business of nature, near the south Line Wall Guard.’4 Doubtless the possibility of being fired on with red-hot shot kept the mortar boats at a distance.
